I just talked to someone who is a paraglider. He told me the only way for him
to find out whether he is actaully going upward is by looking at his
altitude-meter. Once he is going up, and there is no more acceleration, he
feels nothing, of course. An when he is a down current and the current slows
down, it actually feels like he is beeing lifted up. That all makes sense. He
also said that it is impossible to tell by looking at the horizon, especially
in a flat area. Maybe birds like vultures or storks are better at this, but I
was wondering whether these and similar birds actually have s.th like a
built-in altitude-meter? Does anyone know how they know that they are being
lifted up?
PS: Sorry for my English, but with altitude-meter, I mean an apparatus that
measures altitude (What's the correct word? My dictionary doesn't know.).
Greetings,
ar
--<--@
Andreas Rose
Arbeitsgruppe Boeck
Institut fuer Zoologie
Universitaet Regensburg
Universitaetsstr. 31
D-93040 Regensburg
email: andreas.rose at biologie.uni-regensburg.de
"Die Zukunft war frueher auch mal besser." (Karl Valentin)